Jarvis: "It's demeaning," city employee says of pay cut to help aquatic centre bottom line

Diving Club president and head coach Ioana Marinescu keeps a close eye on divers Lia Doskoris, 12, left, and Brooke Megdall, 10, at Windsor International Aquatic and Training Centre on Feb. 2, 2017. Marinescu's team has grown to 60 divers, with 15 being competitive.Nick Brancaccio / Windsor Star

In 1990, when the city created its pay equity plan, it left out Shirley Moor and 300 other seasonal parks and recreation employees, mostly women.

Casual employees weren’t eligible for equal pay for work of equal value, the city said.

For 13 years, they were overlooked, until a pay equity official ruled in 2003 that they should have been included. The city had to pay out $6.8 million. Moor received $32,000. The city and Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the employees, agreed on a new, fair pay grid.

But in 2012, the city wanted to save money on the new aquatic centre. So it demanded a pay cut from the same employees and threatened to contract out the part-time jobs at the aquatic centre. The union took a two-year pay cut. Moor was supposed to make $18.18 an hour. Instead, she made $16.48.

She complained.

The city and union violated Ontario’s Pay Equity Act, a pay equity official ruled in 2015. The city was ordered to pay up, again.

The city appealed the ruling to the Ontario Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal. It upheld the decision in April.

“They undercut the grid that the parties had established,” said Ontario Labour Relations Board lawyer Voy Stelmaszynski. “It’s a violation of the act, which is an illegality.”

The tribunal ordered the city to pay Moor $4,000 in lost pay plus interest.

Three decisions. Three wins for Moor, the casual employee who has worked for the city for 30 years.

But that’s not decisive enough for the city. It’s seeking a judicial review.

The city, known for “holding the line” on spending, has already spent more than $58,000 fighting a $4,000 ruling.

“We had an agreement with the union,” Mayor Drew Dilkens told the Star’s Craig Pearson. “We had worked on that agreement in good faith.”

He’s referring to the illegal agreement. The union could argue it worked on the new pay grid in good faith, too. Until the city threatened its jobs.

CUPE Local 543 president Mark Vander Voort says the union wanted to spread the cut across the membership to save one group from taking the entire hit. He says the city said no. He says the union asked that managers take a pay cut, too. He says the city said no.

“We were an easy target,” Moor said.

She wanted to work part-time, she said, but “I didn’t want to be walked all over.”

So she filed the complaint. The union, saying it was worried about losing jobs, wouldn’t represent her. Moor, represented by her husband, and the city fought for 4 1/2 years.

“It was a slugfest,” she said.

It’s disturbing that the city tries to save money by contracting out, or threatening to contract out, the jobs of regular people — garbage collectors, parking enforcement officers and Moor, a 63-year-old part-time receptionist who makes $20,000 a year.

City hall praised the pay cut at the time.

The union “demonstrated significant flexibility,” an administration report stated. A euphemism for concessions.

Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac thanked the union for “stepping up to the plate and … agreeing to participate.” Choosing between a job and a pay cut wasn’t much of a choice.

The city had to control the aquatic centre’s costs, it said. Families must be able to afford the admission price, it said. It was like the aquatic centre’s success hinged in part on the lowest paid employees getting even less.

Since then, the aquatic centre has haemorrhaged money, costing $3.2 million a year to operate. The price of admission has increased. And the city is pumping $200,000 a year into marketing it.

If we can’t afford a $78-million aquatic centre without bullying its part-time employees into taking a pay cut, maybe we shouldn’t build it.

The city waived $75,000 in fees for a new diving club this year because the diving tower was idle. That would have paid Moor’s wages for almost four years.

“It’s demeaning,” she said.

Every one of the other 300 employees who lost pay for two years should get it back, too.

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